


I'd Believe It All

by cloakoflevitation



Series: I Hope It's Already Too Late [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Gen, Morality | Patton Sanders Needs a Hug, No Beta – I Won't Let Go of Your Hand, Song: Two Birds (Regina Spektor), emotional hurt and some comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29014947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloakoflevitation/pseuds/cloakoflevitation
Summary: This is part of a series where the dark sides have taken over the Mindscape.Patton goes to the dark side to convince Virgil to come back.This is what I like to call that good good hurt. Just trust me. (Or don't I guess.)
Series: I Hope It's Already Too Late [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010970
Comments: 14
Kudos: 15





	I'd Believe It All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmpressSerelene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressSerelene/gifts).



> @EmpressSerelene, tysm for your kind comment on the last part of this series!! I would die for you

Careful to keep his footsteps light, Patton crept down the hallway, trying to calm his heart rate to a normal level. The halls seemed to darken, shadows stretching and lengthening, as if they knew he didn’t belong. But he pressed onwards, determined.

As long as Roman and Logan could keep the others busy, he should be fine.

When he got to the door, he hesitated. He reached out for the handle, and for one terrifying moment, he thought the door wasn’t going to open. He had no idea what he was going to do, no backup plan, but then the doorknob finally turned in his hand, and he swung it open.

Nerves crept up and down his spine, tingling, reminding him that he wasn’t meant to be there.

Softly, he shut the door behind him, keeping all his movements careful and slow, despite knowing that everyone else was currently away. Better safe than sorry, he thought.

He walked past the kitchen, towards the living room, and saw Virgil staring at his phone, headphones on over his ears.

Briefly, he considered calling Virgil’s name, but then decided against it, not knowing how loud the sound coming through Virgil’s headphones was. He didn’t want to shout unnecessarily. Instead, he opted to walk into Virgil’s line of sight.

No sooner had he taken two more steps, Virgil startled, jumping up from the sofa to his feet, his gaze snapping up to Patton, and then he turned to sweep the room. The headphones over his ears were pulled off, joining his phone, forgotten on the sofa. “What are you doing here?” Virgil hissed, quickly glancing up the stairs, as if he expected Janus or Remus to come rushing out. “Do you know what the others will do if they find you here?”

“They won’t,” Patton said, shaking his head slightly. When Virgil didn’t look convinced, Patton admitted, “Roman is keeping Remus busy in the imagination, and Logan is distracting Janus.”

Surprise flashed across Virgil’s face before his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t think you did that kind of thing.”

“Well, I…” Patton rubbed the back of his neck. Lately, it seemed everyone was doing all kinds of things that they didn’t normally do. “I needed to talk to you. I know we can fix this if we just talk about it.” 

“And we can’t do that with the others here?”

_ Oh no. _ This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He was supposed to ease Virgil into it, explain things before jumping to the final conclusion. He sighed heavily.

“Virgil…” Patton took a step towards him. “You have to know that they’re manipulating you. Janus and Remus… they’re just causing chaos. We need –” He cut himself off, running a trembling hand through his hair, knocking his glasses askew. He righted them carefully. “Kiddo, look. Thomas doesn’t want this. If we can just go back to the way things were –”

“I don’t think we can.” Virgil’s expression was flat, giving nothing away. Patton couldn’t read him at all and it  _ hurt. _

He wanted to reach out for Virgil, to pull him close and hold him. If Virgil would just  _ listen, _ if he could get Virgil away from Janus and Remus, then Patton  _ knew _ everything would be okay again, he was sure of it. They could go back to the way things were, before Remus and Janus came along to mess everything up. Patton was so sure that everything could be fixed, if Virgil came back with him. They could all be  _ happy _ again. “Virgil,  _ please–” _

When he took another step forward, Virgil took one back. Virgil shoved his hands into his pockets and frowned. “I think you should leave.”

“But–”

“Patton!” Virgil cut in sharply. He took a deep breath and lowered his voice, but his tone was still just as cold as it had been a moment before. “Leave, now. Or…” He hesitated for only a heartbeat before continuing, “Or I’ll call Janus and Remus back.”

All at once, the air in Patton’s lungs was sucked out, as if he had been punched. “You wouldn’t.” But even as he said it, he heard the fear in his own voice, and he knew Virgil would be able to see the uncertainty painted across his face. “I… I thought we were your family! I thought you had changed!”

Virgil pressed his lips together, not quite making eye contact with him. “I think maybe we’ve all changed.”

“I haven’t! If you would just come back, you’d see! Nothing  _ has _ to change! It can be just as it was!”

“It can’t.” Virgil shook his head and turned away. His voice fell to barely a whisper, and Patton wasn’t sure if Virgil was talking more to Patton or to himself. “I mean – could you forgive me? Could you forget everything that I did?” He wrapped his arms around himself, and Patton’s heart ached. “How could it ever be the same?”

“I could–”

“And Logan? Roman? Could they?” There was a pause that Patton couldn’t fill. Virgil laughed bitterly. “Yeah, somehow I don’t see Roman  _ ever _ forgiving this.” He turned, his eyes slowly dragging away from the walls of the living room of the dark side to once again meet Patton’s. “I don’t think I could forgive you,” he said quietly, and it felt like a knife to Patton’s heart. Virgil’s voice grew slightly louder and a bit kinder. “Things can’t be the same. They just  _ can’t. _ It doesn’t work like that.”

“I don’t  _ understand,” _ Patton pleaded, ignoring the way his voice cracked on the last word. A lone tear slipped down his cheek, and he roughly wiped it away. “Were you so unhappy with us? I – I don’t – how could you  _ leave?” _

He hadn’t realized he was sobbing until he was pulled close, tucked against Virgil’s chest.

“Did you – were you – were you  _ ever _ happy? Was – was it  _ me?” _ Blindly, he grabbed at Virgil’s jacket, clutching handfuls of the fabric, terrified that Virgil would pull away at any moment and be gone forever, slipping through his fingers like sand.

It wasn’t  _ fair. _ This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Patton,” Virgil soothed, carefully low and soft. Patton thought he heard a tremor in his voice, but it might have only been his imagination. “It was so many things, Patton,” Virgil said, still as quiet as before. “So many things.”

“I – I don’t want –”

“Hey.” Virgil’s voice was unbearably gentle as he briefly tightened his arms around Patton. “I know.” He sighed deeply, and Patton could feel Virgil’s chest rise and fall. He was so warm. “I know,” Virgil repeated, scarcely audible.

Patton stayed like that for as long as he could, held in Virgil’s arms, soaking up the comfort so readily offered to him. It was only when Virgil pulled away that he forced himself to step back, his arms falling limply to his sides, hanging awkwardly. He wanted to reach out for Virgil once more, but he didn’t.

A ghost of a smile crossed Virgil’s face, all sadness and bitterness. “Patton, you should go.”

He wordlessly shook his head  _ no, _ fighting back tears again. “Come back with me,” he begged. “I don’t understand why you won’t. We could be  _ happy. _ It doesn’t have to end like this!”

Virgil’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes closed for a long moment. “It’s…” He trailed off, grimacing at whatever he had wanted to say. Then he shook his head firmly, his expression smoothing out with conviction. “I can’t leave them. I  _ won’t _ leave them.”

“But you can leave  _ us?” _

Something cut across Virgil’s expression, hard and bitter and ugly, and Patton vaguely registered the emotion pouring off of him as anger. “Are you making me choose?” Virgil demanded. “You or them?”

Patton could only blink, eyes wide in surprise. He had thought he’d known what choice Virgil would make. He’d thought it would have been easy, no choice at all really. Clearly he was wrong.

“Don’t do this,” Virgil warned in a low voice. “If you make me choose, you won’t like the outcome.”

Stumbling back as if he’d been struck, Patton dared to ask, dreading the answer, “You’d choose them?”

There was no trace of sympathy or apology in Virgil’s tone.  _ “Patton…” _

“Tell me it’s because you love them.” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he was even sure he was going to say them. “Tell me it’s because they’re your family.” He needed to hear the reason, to know why Virgil would choose the others over him and Roman and Logan, to know  _ how _ he could choose them. He needed to know it had been a hard decision, that it was hurting Virgil as much as it was hurting him. He needed to know that Virgil had cared for them, even if it wasn’t as much as he did Janus and Remus, even if it wasn’t enough to make him stay in the light side. He needed to  _ understand. _ “Tell me you don’t agree with what they’re doing,” Patton pleaded, fighting the tangled mess of words and emotions inside his head, desperate for answers. “Tell me you feel you had no other choice!” Hysteria was rising in his throat, leaking into his voice, coloring everything he was saying. “Tell me something, tell me  _ anything!” _

Virgil kept a stony silence.

“Lie to me,” Patton begged, feeling tears run down his cheeks for the millionth time. “I’d believe it, coming from you.” He looked at Virgil’s face, blurred by the tears in his eyes, and tried to ignore the distance between them, tried to see somewhere in Virgil’s expression where things had gone wrong. Belatedly, he realized Virgil’s hug had felt like a goodbye. His voice fell to a whisper as he choked out, “I’d believe anything, coming from you.”

Shock filtered across Virgil’s face, followed quickly by guilt and pain.

“Tell me something,  _ anything...” _ Patton could feel his heart shattering, bit by bit, fragment by fragment, into an uncountable number of tiny little pieces that could never be made to fit back together again. “Virgil,  _ please!” _

Virgil took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. He tilted his chin up slightly, looking like he was bracing himself for what he was about to say. “Whatever happens…”

“Don’t – we can –”

“…I would have given anything to be able to change all of this.”

“Just let me –”

**_“Remus. Janus.”_ ** Half a second after Virgil summoned them, the two sides appeared. They noticed Virgil first, surprise blooming on Janus’s face as he saw the state Virgil was in – hood pulled over his head, eyeshadow far too dark, his figure nearly cloaked completely in shadows. Remus quickly followed Virgil’s gaze to Patton.

“Oh dear,” Remus crooned, the playful grin on his face backlit by a dark undercurrent of fury. “What have we here?”

Janus stepped in front of Virgil, blocking him from Patton’s view. He bared his fangs, glaring at Patton as though looks could kill.  _ “Get out.” _

Remus raised a hand, and his morning star appeared in his grasp, resting on one of his shoulders.

For a moment, Patton waited, foolishly hoping that Virgil would say something, do something, and the world would tilt and be righted again, pulling them all out of this hellish nightmare. He waited and waited and… 

“Leave, Patton.”

He admitted defeat and sunk out.

Guilt and anger and sorrow and  _ pain _ burned in his heart, and he forced himself to accept that the three dark sides were now past saving.

**Author's Note:**

> it hurts I know, but we're headed in a direction okay? I have plans (tentative, loose plans, but still plans)
> 
> for the next part I'm thinking... maybe Patton and Roman and Logan with some anger/righteous fury about everything? alternatively, we could have soft boi hours in the dark side and have them actually get some shit done now that they run the mindscape. we'll see. I haven't started writing anything yet


End file.
